Welcome from the Vice President for Research

CWRU researchers are among the most distinguished in the world. We have 16 Nobel Laureates among current and former faculty and alumni, 4 members of the National Academies of Sciences, 7 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 8 members of the Institute of Medicine. We also partner with artistic and cultural institutions on a broad range of projects that make important scholarly contributions in the humanities and social sciences.

Extraordinary research requires an outstanding infrastructure. Our Office of Research & Technology Management provides support to seek out grant funding, to facilitate industrial sponsorship, and to transfer university technologies to the marketplace. This is a place for people driven to make a difference, and our office exists to help them succeed.

SpartaCOI is now available for 2014 Annual Outside Financial Interests Certification

It is time for all full-time faculty and non-faculty investigators to complete the annual CWRU Outside Financial
Interests Certification Form.
CWRU Conflict of Interests Policy requires disclosure at least annually and the deadline
for completion of the 2014 form is April 1, 2015.

The Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR) Program provides funds: 1) for improvements to secure, improve, and organize collections that are significant to the NSF BIO-funded research community; 2) to secure collections-related data for sustained, accurate, and efficient accessibility of the collection to the biological research community; and 3) to transfer collection ownership responsibilities.

The CSBR program provides for enhancements that secure and improve existing collections, result in accessible digitized specimen-related data, and develop better methods for specimen curation and collection management. Requests should demonstrate a clear and urgent need to secure the collection, and the proposed activities should address that need. Biological collections supported include established living stock/culture collections, vouchered non-living natural history collections, and jointly-curated ancillary collections such as preserved tissues and DNA libraries.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) have launched the Beyond the Box National Digitization Innovation Competition. The initiative will award $1 million to the individual or team who develops a novel way to accurately and efficiently capture digital images of insect specimens and their associated data from a standard museum drawer of insects.

The Beyond the Box Digitization Challenge has been designed to stimulate individuals or teams to solve a problem that is hindering scientific research and innovation - the inability to quickly and accurately digitize specimens and associated data in a standard tray of insects in a natural history museum. Solving this problem will help advance research as well as contribute to improved public health, environmental management, and agriculture by providing scientists, farmers, health care providers, and citizen scientists with access to our nation's insect collections. Moreover, the solution to this problem will almost certainly find additional applications in scientific and commercial settings.
The winning entry will receive up to $1 million for the development of a hardware and software system that automates digitization of pinned insect specimens, without damaging the specimens--one of the most challenging biocollections digitization tasks.

Grant proposals are due in the Office of Research Administration (or Office of Grants & Contracts in SOM) at least 5 working days before the sponsor’s deadline. This allows time for an institutional review and correction of errors or omissions. As soon as you decide to submit a grant, contact your designated ORA or OGC specialist to let him/her know to expect your proposal. All funding proposals are now submitted on-line through the Sparta system.

Research @ CWRU: Research Adminstration and Human Resources Boot Camps

The Office of Research Administration and the Department of Human Resources are please to offer the following sessions, designed to help faculty navigate administrative processes related to research...

This 90-minute orientation is designed to help navigate the university's research grant and regulatory compliance processes and policies. Research Administration staff members will share the university’s internal procedures and attendees will receive a binder of helpful information to take away from the presentation. There will be plenty of time for questions.

New faculty are specifically invited, but all faculty are welcome to attend.

The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable models for STEM graduate education training. The NRT program seeks proposals that ensure that graduate students in research-based master’s and doctoral degree programs develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers.

The NRT program includes two tracks: the Traineeship Track and the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Track. The Traineeship Track is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, through the use of a comprehensive traineeship model that is innovative, evidence-based, aligned with changing workforce and research needs, and scalable. For this solicitation the Traineeship Track has one priority interdisciplinary research theme - Data-Enabled Science and Engineering (DESE); proposals are encouraged also on any non-DESE interdisciplinary research theme that is a national priority. The IGE Track is dedicated solely to piloting, testing, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary, to generate the knowledge required for their customization, implementation, and broader adoption. Whereas the Traineeship Track promotes building on the current knowledge base to more effectively train STEM graduate students, the IGE Track supports test-bed projects with high potential to enrich, improve, and extend the knowledge base with attention to transferability and innovation. For both tracks, strategic collaborations with the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies, national laboratories, field stations, teaching and learning centers, museums, and academic partners are encouraged.

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